Preserving the illusion of freedom
Americans often arm themselves with phrases like “freedom is not free” and “live free or die”, but most educated individuals recognize that freedom is nothing more than an illusion. Americans rarely considered the idea of a fascist State developing in the U.S. Post-9/11, “things changed”, right? When terrorism and fear are both at the disposal of propaganda artists, the likelihood of a tragic decline of free Democracy is no longer far-fetched. Notice that the idea of fascism is no longer cast aside as an idea that only paranoid delusional conspiracy theorists flirt with.Keith Olberman attacked Donald Rumsfeld in the past for calling war critics, “Fascists”

Growing up, I always felt that we were not exactly free. I could not quite put my finger on it, because were living on the land of the free. At least that was/is what we were always told. But you can do any thing or go any where you want. Well I did think about it then, and I knew that as a poor black boy, that was not exactly true. So I figured it was true for whites, right?

“ Supposedly governments were meant to make human life easier and safer. But governments always end up enslaving humanity. That which we create to "serve us" ends up "ruling us." The US government by and for the people now imprisons millions. It takes half the income by force, over-regulates, punishes, tortures, slaughters foreigners, invades countries; overthrows governments, imposes seven hundred imperialistic bases overseas and crushes future generations with massive debts. That which we create to serve us ends up ruling us.
The problem with the state as servant thesis is that it is historically completely false; both empirically and logically. The idea that states were invented by citizens to enhance their own security is utterly untrue. Before governments in tribal times, human beings could only produce what they consumed; there was no excess production of food or other resources: Thus there was no point in owning slaves because the slaves could not produce any excess that could be stolen by the master.”

“If a horse pulling a plow can only produce enough additional food to feed the horse there is no point hunting, capturing and breaking in a horse. However when agriculture improvements allowed for the creation of excess crops, suddenly it became highly advantageous to own human beings. When cows began to provide excess milk and meat, owning cows became worthwhile.
The earliest governments and empires were in fact a ruling class of slave hunters who understood that because human beings could produce more than they consumed they were worth hunting, capturing breaking-in, and owning. The earliest Egyptian and Chinese Empires were in reality, human farms: Where people were hunted, captured, domesticated and owned like any other form of livestock. Due to methodological and technological improvements the slaves produced enough excess that the labor involved in capturing and keeping them represented only a small sub-set of their total productivity.

The ruling class farmers kept a large portion of that excess, while handing out gifts and payments to the brutalizing class; the police, slave hunters and general sadists, and the propagandizing class, the priests, intellectuals and artists. This situation continued for thousands of years until the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries; when again massive improvements in agricultural organization and technology created the second-wave of excess productivity.”

I think there are some real freedoms (not just illusions), for example, one is free to kill themselves ... free to have sex ... free to think ... a number of things.

Click to expand...

Freedoms can also be used against you. Freedom to contract are used against most people.

Destee said:

Even with the freedoms afforded us, i think there would always be a need for some government, regulation, steering, etc.

Click to expand...

(Self-) responsibility is a correlative to freedom. Freedom is not unlimited. If a person will not regulate themselves within, they shall be regulated without.

Destee said:

A government that is just ... implying justice dictated by reason, conscience, and a natural sense of what is fair to all.

That's the part missing in current government, and it makes the concept of government look like a bad thing, but it doesn't have to be.

Do you all think we could live ... a large population of all kinds of people ... without any government? Where do they do that at?

Click to expand...

Government, for the individuals running it, offers the great temptation to engage in rent-seeking behavior.

Governments, with respect to Western Civilizations, are essentially private clubs for the benefit of its members to engage in exploitation and regulation of the land and people within its territorial reach.

I think there are some real freedoms (not just illusions), for example, one is free to kill themselves ... free to have sex ... free to think ... a number of things.

Even with the freedoms afforded us, i think there would always be a need for some government, regulation, steering, etc.

A government that is just ... implying justice dictated by reason, conscience, and a natural sense of what is fair to all.

That's the part missing in current government, and it makes the concept of government look like a bad thing, but it doesn't have to be.

Do you all think we could live ... a large population of all kinds of people ... without any government? Where do they do that at?

Great Topic Brother Corvo!

Love You!

Destee

Click to expand...

A government that is just, Is an Ideal that people have bean experimenting with for a long time ( tens of thousands of years). they have been accomplished many times. We don’t read about them now, for a reason. Justly governed people have been conquered by other more aggressive kingdoms through out human history.

Justly governed groups, tribes, villages, chiefdoms and even kingdoms have existed in many parts of the world.
From what I have seen and read , We humans have the ability to deal fairly with one another naturally. On a one on one level, we work well together for a mutual benefit. Human beings are communal in nature, though not naturally hieratical….

As for being free, I believe that’s always a mater of degree. To be the most free, one would have to be in an environment that had no ruling structure in place. That the rules of behavior would only be those that one freely chose to live by. I believe only smaller groups in a natural sustainable environment have done that ( hunter gatherers/farming ). Most native groups before European or Arabic conquest.